When it comes to health and vitality it all starts with the mind; the way you think and the choices that are made from this state of mind. Occasional spa retreats, shopping sprees or weekend getaways are just not enough to recharge the body, mind and soul. Health must be maintained day-by-day so your occasional mental or physical getaways can serve as bonuses.

There are so many things in life that are out of our control that we must make an effort to control the things we can have some influence over. As our lives get denser with food borne toxins, environmental oxidants, hustle and social stress our ability to tolerate poor nutrition declines. This means we need to improve nutrient density or quality just to compensate for the way we live today.

The healthiest choices cannot be made all the time but we must strive to make the healthiest choices most of the time. When these healthier decisions must be made, what do you base them on? Do you have a guide or plan that leads you to your goal? And do you really know what your goal is? Forget the notion that you need to lose five pounds, two inches or build more toned muscle. Focus on the underlying driver of these results – health. Focus on building health and preventing interference of health.

Your body is perpetually striving to create and maintain health. The most powerful thing you can do is to allow this natural ability to be freed of toxic interference. In order for this to happen you need a plan; a plan that allows this genetically programmed health to surface undisturbed.

My personal rule of thumb is 70%. That is, make seventy percent of your daily lifestyle choices healthy. If we stick to this 70% rule, the balance of our choices generally do not have enough negative weight to pull the healthy momentum offline. This 70% can take the form of three of the four meals each day being made from healthy choices; five of the seven days each week being healthy; three of the four weeks each month being stricter; but not all of these applied concurrently.

Weekdays are usually easier to stay with structured programs since the day tends to be more organized. Eventually you’ll want to stay with the healthier choices all the time simply because of how they make you feel. After choosing the 70% structure that works for you, you need to define what ‘healthy’ will be. Don’t just wing it; that never works. The food selections in your food guide must represent a dense source of natural fiber, detoxifying antioxidants, vitamins and minerals.

Low glycemic index vegetables (below 60 GI) that grow above ground often encompass most of the food properties that fit the program. They support the goal by helping detoxify, limiting toxic contribution, maintaining healthy pH, supporting healthy insulin response and limiting caloric consequence from the foods.

Most of us have a pretty good idea of what we should be eating and how we should be living in order to build and maintain health. But a ‘pretty good idea’ is just not enough to make things happen. The other problem we face is that upon slipping for a meal or a day we often suddenly feel like we’ve let ourselves down. Too many of us will just quit because we can’t face failing again sometime down the road. This wallowing is part of the problem. It just advances the anxiety that for most of us, fuels the unhealthy lifestyle choices at a subconscious level.

As long as 70 % of your daily choices are healthy, the cleansing and health maintenance momentum that we are about to establish cannot be derailed. You will live by this 70% rule and just allow the less desired choices to accumulate in the 30% junk pile. When the right choices are made, food volume per meal can be quite filling. One important key to this process is living consciously. That is, staying as aware in your day as possible about your choices so not to fall victim to those subconscious or automatic choices.

Sample dinner or lunch meal from the Food Guide to come for a person in the 125-150 pound category:

Brown Rice 1 cup

Yams ½ cup

Gr, Y or/& R Peppers 1 cup

Cauliflower 1 cup

Cabbage 1 cup

Chicken 3.5 oz

Olive Oil 2 tsp

That’s quite a bit of food! This can be made into a stir fry or plated as different courses. Seasoning and light sauces as described in the food guide can add the tang and zip you need to make these foods even more enjoyable. In addition to the right food plan, choose a detoxifying herbal cleanse that can be used on a regular basis to ensure that internal elimination, intestinal flow and digestive health are maintained. Apply this cleanse monthly to keep toxins, oxidants and metabolic byproducts from building up in the body. The monthly priming serves multiple purposes.

The cleanse works its wonders at the levels of the mind and metabolism at the same time. As the cleanse makes way for your metabolism to detoxify naturally, the administration of the cleanse is a reminder to your consciousness as well. It’s a reminder to stay aware in your day-to-day to override the subconscious habits that lead to unhealthy food choices. In other words, as your body is detoxified and scrubbed clean, your mindset is also retuned by the monthly cleanse to get it in line with making the right choices each step of your day, week and month.

Choose a gentle herbal cleanse that can be taken on a monthly basis to help reset body and mind. Triphala is an effective Ayervedic formulation made up of various fruits that naturally tone liver, circulatory system and digestive tract while helping mobilize and eliminate toxicity. The proper addition of turkey rhubarb and marshmallow root further supports the cleansing activity of Triphala by facilitating gastrointestinal motility and ensuring that toxins are completely but still gently eliminated. A formula that combines these active herbs provides more complete activity.

You are responsible for making the time to set in motion your health plan. Don’t rely on a reactive health care program to take care of your health when it has failed. The responsibility to prevent premature degradation of health and personal performance is all yours. Reset mind and body and maintain this new healthier, fitter direction with a food guide that fits the criteria.

A well researched program has been crafted to accompany the ReCleanse nutraceutical cleansing formulae to make your job easier. This food guide has worked wonders in clinical environments to treat chronic fatigue, improve energy and strength, restore control over body fat management and insulin health, lift brain fog and simply improve quality of life. In the real world it’s life changing. Take charge, with ReCleanse to get clean and lean and then stay clean and lean with a proven food guide.

Choose to cleanse, detoxify and maintain a lean metabolism in one clean sweep.

By Franco Cavaleri BSc NB

Daily choices mould your metabolism!

There’s a lot more to staying clean and toxin-free than avoiding food-borne toxins and environmental pollution. The foods we choose and the lifestyle we engage in also fuel or interfere with natural detoxification and cleansing. Your metabolism and its capacity to cleanse and detoxify is a direct reflection of your lifestyle choices. If the body is empowered with the right nutrients and not overwhelmed by unnatural levels of toxicity the natural cleansing systems are effective.

We’re all equipped with cellular consciousness that identifies toxins, defuses and discards them. However, today’s fast food and fast-paced lifestyles are not always supportive of the process. Poor food choices often deliver a double detriment in the form of the toxins they carry but also in the way they interfere with the metabolism and the detoxification process. If these systems have been down for too long they’ll often need a bit of jumpstart or priming to get them working again.

The first step toward creating and maintaining a clean and fit metabolism is obviously in choosing clean foods. We all recognize the value of choosing whole and fresh foods void of artificial flavors, colors, and preservatives and unscathed by pesticides and chemical growth factors. However, there are deeper detoxification and cleansing benefits that whole, fresh food offers. Healthier food choices bring with them more of the natural antioxidants, vitamins and minerals that our cells need to detoxify and naturally cleanse the body. They also supply crucial fiber that keeps toxins moving outward.

Antioxidants neutralize toxic chemicals; vitamins serve as specialized cofactors that fuel that ripple effect or flow of toxins and byproducts of metabolism. Other nutrients serve as chelating agents to immobilize and then send intruding chemicals on their way. Mineral balance associated with whole, fresh foods also helps produce equilibrium in the cells that supports a spontaneous flushing of toxins while processed foods often carry mineral loads that create less preferred body pH.

Most of us, however, just can`t stay with the clean and lean lifestyle each and every day. Life just isn’t that straight forward and predictable. Properly formulated herbal cleansing products can help activate detoxification and cleansing if it has gone awry and bring the body back in line with a clean and lean objective. However, deep and effective cleansing is only possible through programs that include initialization herbs, antioxidants and a strategic food guide. The right food choices help maintain the clean and lean state but these choices must take into consideration more than just vitamin, mineral, antioxidant and fiber density.

The body’s natural tide of elimination is also affected by the type of carbohydrate sources you eat and the time of day they are eaten. The proportion of protein, fat and carbohydrate in a meal dictates profound hormonal signals starting with insulin that ripple to each and every cell of the body. The cleansing potential of your cells is ultimately driven by this ripple effect.

Choose to support a clean and lean metabolism.

Choose to make fit, healthy revitalizing choices throughout the day. Incorporate more physical activity. This doesn’t mean you have to engage in planned exercise two hours each day. Just make different choices: walk to the store instead of taking the car; ride the bicycle to the bank; and take the stairs instead of the elevator. Take a walk at lunch time and park the car a few blocks from the office to get some physical work and increase sunlight exposure. The lymphatic system plays a huge role in elimination of toxins but its activity depends on working muscles to pump out debris and toxicity.

Choose the right cleansing products. There are many herbal cleansing products to choose from but the key is to find one that easily fits into your routine while it guides effective cleansing. The cleanse must include two components; one that activates the internal cleansing and detoxifying systems quickly and efficiently and another herbal component that gently prompts colon cleansing and elimination without disrupting lifestyle.

Choose the right food guide.I’m not talking about dieting, calorie restriction and struggle. I’m talking about the right plan that guides you each step of the way and nourishes mind and body so completely that willpower and guess work are not required. The foods that fit the objective will have a lower glycemic index (GI less than 60), relatively neutral pH outcome, and high fiber content and nutrient density. Whole (and not processed or refined) carbohydrate sources, for example, will supply a large portion of the day’s fiber and other nutrient requirements while reducing strain on the metabolism. They typically fit the criteria more closely and support detoxification and elimination.

The carbohydrate category of food can be further divided in to low density and high density carb sources. Lower density sources can be consumed in larger volumes to satisfy appetite without the same caloric consequence. They generally have a higher fiber content and an inherently lower glycemic index. As a result they are more likely to provide better cleansing and detoxification potential. These include vegetable selections that grow above ground like asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, kale, string beans, lettuce, okra, spinach, wheat grass, cucumbers, squash, eggplant and others related to these.

Higher density carbohydrate sources such as whole wheat pastas, brown rice, yam and sweet potato, can be consumed in smaller volumes with each meal and combined with the larger volume of lower density sources. Combining in these proportions helps reduce glycemic load and improve metabolic efficiency. A healthy food guide will incorporate these strategies into a broader program to allow for abundant food volume each day without negative metabolic effect.

Choose to get a fresh start and choose to keep it clean and lean with less effort! ReCleanse Herbal Cleanse is a complete program in one box and it gets the cleansing processing going in just seven days. The program includes an Herbal Multi-Systems Body Cleansing Formula designed to mobilize toxins in the body; a second Herbal Colon Cleansing Formula that gently eliminates bowel contents to keep toxins flowing without disrupting lifestyle; and a science-based Food Guide to help maintain the rejuvenated, clean state with ease. This included carefully planned food guide is a crucial vehicle for the program supporting the cleansing initialized by the herbal components but more importantly maintaining the cleaner and leaner result long term. Choose to take charge of your metabolism in one clean sweep.

Your meals are far more than a supply of nutritional building blocks. They evoke a hormonal response in the body that ripples out to each of your cells in the form of hormone signals. These signals are influenced by the food types and proportion of fat, carbohydrate and protein in the meal. The long term influence of these impulses moulds how insulin, testosterone, estrogen and the stress hormones, like cortisol function. Your long term health is a reflection of the foods you choose and the meals you compose.

Many of the hormonal and other problems that creep up on us over time develop over decades of less than preferred choices. Much of this damage is reversible but it cannot be untangled in just a week or month. Your body is so amazing it can correct these inefficiencies with less time it took for them to develop. You see, your body fights tooth and nail to prevent your less than healthy choices from causing dis-ease. Illnesses or lack of optimal health is not a sudden occurrence.

However, your body accepts and incorporates your healthy choices with greater ease allowing for health to surface expeditiously if given the right tools. Health will surface even faster if toxicity and interference is removed from the body and avoided in the lifestyle. Patience and persistence with the right program will unravel the tangled mess of misguided hormone activity. .

Food plays a monumental role in health and the fibre content it delivers is one big factor. The problem is, the faster our lives get the less fiber we tend to consume.

Fibre, however, is not the only nutritional element that high-fibre foods offer the body. These higher fibre foods are most often in their whole form. Vegetables, fruits and whole grains are major sources. What’s not often considered in the fibre equation is the other important nutrients that typically come with high-fibre diets. High fiber foods tend to have a lower glycemic index resulting in lower strain on insulin. They tend to deliver fewer calories, greater satiety, better vitamin and mineral density, higher antioxidant levels and often healthier fatty acid balances as well. Although fibre delivers its own nutritional value these accompanying nutrients support health in different but synergistic ways.

Fiber acts like a sponge to hold onto toxins and help eliminate them through the increased bulk they help create. Fibre is fermented by specialized friendly bacteria in the healthy digestive tract fueling their existence. The fermentation products include many compounds cells throughout the body rely on such as enterolactones; key vitamins such as some of the B`s and vitamin K; and short chain fatty acids that help maintain healthy gastrointestinal pH. Research shows that some of these compounds reduce the risk of infection by opportunistic pathogens and other byproducts of the gut-friendly bacteria even reduce the risk for some forms of cancer.

Choose to eat processed foods void of sufficient fiber and the body will not get the tools and fuels it needs to sustain health. The specialized compounds produced from soluble fibres in the gut also travel systemically through the blood stream to help regulate cholesterol, antioxidant status, blood vessel regulation, immunity, insulin, brain activity and more.

Choose to eat whole fresh foods every day.

Drugs cannot effectively compensate for these missing nutritional factors; they can only serve as temporary crutches that allow us an opportunity to empower self sufficient health. But self sufficient health depends on healthy diet and beyond diet, healthy lifestyle. Whole fresh foods provide the body with the natural tools it needs to maintain health spontaneously.

Choose to eat enough fiber every day.

Health authorities indicate that North Americans don’t get enough fibre in their diets and that consumption should exceed 25 grams per day. The ReCleanse recommendation is to strive to consume 35 grams per day and the included ReCleanse Food Guide is designed to get you to this health-supporting fibre intake easily.

Choose organic whenever possible to avoid unnecessary toxicity.

Choosing organic reduces the ingestion of pesticides and other chemicals that can burden the endocrine system and the body. Interestingly some of the common pesticides used in agriculture are neurotoxin poisons that have detrimental effects on humans if the doses are high enough. These neurotoxins can have deleterious effects on the brain and peripheral neurons

Organophosphates and organochlorines are common chemicals that might not be used in North America as prolifically as they are in third world countries but much of our produce, coffee and cocoa come from countries where these toxins are used without much regulation. The dreaded organophosphate contributes to insulin strain and even insulin resistance. Another detrimental side-effect of the organophosphate is its estrogenic activity.

Organophosphate pesticides are xenoestrogens. Xenoestrogens are chemical compounds that act like estrogen in our bodies. Xenoestrogens can migrate into our bodies from plastics, petroleum products, our water supply, and in various forms from the food chain. They are common toxic byproducts of industry that tend to find their way into our waterways and the marine foods we harvest from the earth’s waters.

Xenoestrogens can contribute to estrogen dominance and can play a role in fatness and even cancer risks. The implications are even broader for men who obviously function best with a testosterone dominant metabolism. It’s exponentially problematic on the more delicate endocrine systems of our children, especially infants, where they can be influenced developmentally.

If the diet is loaded with xenoestrogens such as the organophposphate and high glycemic index foods, these two factors alone will be major driving forces of fatness, toxin accumulation and less than optimal health. Eliminating these influences improves insulin health, better estrogen to testosterone balance and even mental clarity to produce enormous changes in health in mere weeks. If we make the move to avoid these toxins through choosing healthy foods, we’re one step towards empowering the body to restore health and fitness.

Choose to take action.

STEP 1: Take action by cleaning, detoxifying and eliminating toxicity to help reset health. ReCleanse Herbal Detox is designed to help establish this reset.

STEP 2 Choose the right foods to support your new state of health. The food solution we’ve heard over and over again is to eat fresh, whole, local, organic, nonGMO and balanced. Plating the food selections into a balanced meal is all about proportioning carbohydrate, fat and protein in the meal. This doesn’t have to be difficult at all; and is made so easy by the ReCleanse Food Guide. Toxins assault us from environment, food, metabolic activity and even the stress we impose on ourselves. These non-food sources must consider as well. Avoiding known sources of chemical poisons reduces exposure and this is easily done through the right food selections. But there are always unknowns that must be regularly flushed from our vulnerable cells.

STEP 3: Apply the cleanse on a monthly basis to remove build up and remind the body and mind of the healthy objective. By applying a gentle cleanse on a monthly basis we prevent accumulation of these interfering toxins.

Your daily choices empower your body to maintain health or they limit this natural state from surfacing. ReCleanse Herbal Cleanse has incorporated these detoxification, cleansing and elimination strategies in an easy and enjoyable seven day program. The program includes a Food Guide carefully crafted based on these principles to fit the cleansing model and support the cleaner, leaner state in between monthly herbal cleansing cycles. Choose to empower health. Choose to be hormonally clean and hormonally healthy. You’re in charge of your choices; take charge!

Method:
Wash the quinoa to remove the seed cover. Lightly boil water and mix in quinoa, cinnamon and cardamom. Cover and reduce heat to low. Let mixture simmer for 15 minutes as the quinoa absorbs the water. After the quinoa mixture is completed, stir in the other ingredients and chill for 20 – 30 minutes.

Method:
Wash quinoa to remove the seed cover. Lightly boil water and mix in quinoa. Cover and reduce heat to low. Let simmer for 15 minutes as the quinoa absorbs the water. While simmering slice the dates into small cubes. Stir in the cinnamon and date pieces during the last five minutes.

Variations/Recommendations
Other fresh or dried fruit such as raisins, figs or apples can be substituted or added to personal taste!